


just like new times

by dragonsinparis



Category: Lost
Genre: Gen, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-07
Updated: 2012-07-07
Packaged: 2017-11-09 09:45:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/454084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonsinparis/pseuds/dragonsinparis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're finally back in the real world, and Sawyer knows exactly where he wants to go first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	just like new times

All the paperwork is going to be a pain in the ass. And the press attention has been even worse - she’s now the survivor of _two_ notorious plane crashes, and the time she spent back on the island was more than enough for every single fucking news outlet on the planet to figure out that five of the Oceanic Six were on that second plane, and that she’s the only one who came back.

She’s barely seen anyone but Claire since they landed. Claire, who clings to her like she actually knows what to expect and can handle it. _I sucked at this world_ , Kate wants to tell her. _I always kind of did. What makes you think I can help you?_

In a way, she’s perpetually on edge when Claire is there. Not because the blonde woman tried to kill her, but because of what came before. She feels guilty for leaving Claire in the woods, and that kind of annoys her. What choice did she really have at the time? 

Doesn’t she have _enough_ to feel guilty about?

She wants some time alone, more than almost anything, but there’s this endless parade of consequences even though she’s locked up in the hospital while they fuss over her shoulder. She appreciates that they have clean gauze here and all, but the medical system had far less pointless bureaucratic nonsense on the island. Plus, the staff was cuter.

She winces, just a little, and pulls the over-starched white hospital sheets up to her chin. It hasn’t hit her that he’s gone, and the anticipation is grinding her gut like hamburger meat.

“Hey, Freckles.”

The nickname is back and for a tiny part of her, all the years are undone - he’s impossible and gorgeous and needs a shave and she kind of hates him and their biggest problem is polar bears. He’s standing in the doorway of her hospital room, glancing periodically back into the hallway, with that same look he had on his face when he asked her to play I Never back when they were hunting his bovine would-be stalker.

(She has the wild, momentary impulse to find somebody’s urine cup and dump it on one of his spare shirts, just to see if he remembers. The idea is laughably gross, but probably not as much as it should be.)

“What are you _doing_ , Sawyer?”

He grins again. “Bustin’ you out. C’mon, there’s somewhere I wanna go.”

She knows, on some level, that he’s grown up so much in the time she spent away. That as her life was falling apart in the real world his was coming together and blooming on the island, and she wants to resent it but mostly she can only marvel at it. And lurking underneath is this _ache_ ; she can feel how he’s rubbed raw like a buzz under her skin, but he’s not ready to deal with it on top of the culture shock so in the meantime they just fall back to old habits, old times.

The responsible part of her (if there ever was one, without Aaron) tells her she should probably stay put. Fuck that. She sneaks over to where her duffle bag is, slips into a T-shirt and jeans. He makes a show of not looking, smirking to himself and shifting his weight playfully back and forth between his feet. As soon as she’s got shoes on he pulls her out of the room, down the back stairwell. They make a game of it, walking primly past the glass windows on the doors leading to each floor they pass and then thundering down the steps between.

He’s found a used bookstore two blocks down. She marvels at the fact that she didn’t just know, immediately, that this was where they were headed. She’d passed it a million times in her life between the island and the island. She’d never gone in.

But two days home and he goes straight for it, like a kid at Christmas. He disappears into the aisles as soon as they’re in the door, and Kate wanders on her own. She was never much of a reader; she runs her hands halfheartedly along the spines of the books, but only picks up one or two. He’s gone for at least forty-five minutes, and comes back with seven beaten paperbacks, looking more comfortable than she’s seen him since before she left him in that Dharma bed and then he left her in that doomed helicopter.

“What, Freckles, you can’t read?” He says, in high humor, nodding at her empty hands.

She can’t help but laugh and shake her head. “Apparently not. Why did you even bring me?”

He shrugs. He doesn’t know, but that doesn’t seem to bother him. There’s no nonsense about wanting to share this place with her, but all she’s wanted since she got home is some time to herself to not think at all, and he’s given it to her. She’d like to think there’s a unifying element to what they find here: life goes on. Even if it hasn’t yet, it will. And no matter how different they are, no matter how long it’s been or how much they’ve both lost, he’d rather have her there when it does.


End file.
